You are looking at the future. Well, actually you are looking at the present. Or, at least it was a “live stream” when I photographed it an hour or so ago.

Technically speaking, you are seeing a photo of a Samsung HD TV displaying one of two channels of the Bonnaroo Music (and Art) Festival being live-streamed via YouTube. (For the record, Bonnaroo is an hour or so southeast from where I’m writing this, but about two or three decades away from the last time I desired to be in such a massive crowd.)

The reason you are able to see that photo of the concert on my TV has nothing to do with the way we’ve all thought of “Live TV” in the past — as in, what we see on TV being from a cable or broadcast network.

These two Bonaroo channels are flowing into my TV thanks to internet tubes and an array of gadgets that are quite simple to sync up.

Let’s see: I’m using wifi to pull the stream into my iPhone and then, using Apple Air Play, the video and audio is being magically beamed to an AppleTV and into my TV. (I could make this happen easier if I had a Mac Mini hooked up to the TV, but what fun would that be?)

The sound is HD quality and is being pumped out via a Yamaha Soundbar I have connected to my TV (because it fit precisely in the space I had to work with).

Oh, yeah. On the website, it says Intel and Dell are the sponsors, so I guess I should thank them, also.

The picture is of varying quality. It can go from being near HD quality to being pixelated (unlike the near constant HD quality of the Masters Golf Trounament which I watched using their iPhone app in much the same way).

So why is this the future? Well, I’ll let Doc Searls explainwhat will happen when Apple’s screen resolution is added to the mix and how it will turn “the Net’s top into TV’s bottom.”

Did I mention I haven’t seen any commercials?

Did I mention they have two feeds from different stages?

Did I mention how comfortable and air-conditioned the family room in my house is compared to hanging out with 85,000 concert goers in the heat and/or rain that seems never to bother those who actually go to Bonaroo, bless their hearts.

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Launched in August, 2000, RexBlog.com is the personal blog of Rex Hammock, founder/ceo of Hammock Inc., a customer media and marketing services company founded in 1991 in Nashville. Rex is also founder/helper-in-chief of SmallBusiness.com.(...)